7.  The applicant was born in 1957 and lives in Moscow.
8.  In October 2000 the applicant retired from the Ukrainian Army. He was entitled to a lump-sum retirement payment and compensation for his uniform, but the payments were not made to him on his retirement.
9.  In July 2001 the applicant instituted proceedings in the Cherkassy Regional Military Court against Military Unit A-1575, seeking recovery of the debt. On 22 August 2001 the court allowed his claim in full and ordered the military unit to pay the applicant 1,449.36 Ukrainian hryvnias (UAH)[1] in compensation for his uniform, UAH 2,512.50[2] in retirement payment arrears, and UAH 51[3] by way of reimbursement for the court fees. On 22 September 2001 the court’s judgment became final and enforceable.
10.  On an unspecified date the applicant received UAH 2,512.50[4]. The remainder of the award remained unpaid.
11.  The enforcement proceedings concerning the judgment of 22 August 2001 commenced on 24 January 2002. In the course of those proceedings the bailiffs informed the applicant that they had frozen the debtor’s bank accounts, though no funds had been found in those accounts.
12.  In a letter of 12 November 2002 the Ministry of Defence informed the applicant that the legislative provisions entitling him to compensation for his uniform were suspended and that there were no budgetary allocations for such payments.
13.  On 5 May 2003 the debtor military unit was disbanded and Military Unit A-0680 became its successor.
14.  In a letter of 6 April 2004 the bailiffs informed the applicant that the latter military unit had no money to pay the applicant in compliance with the judgment of 22 August 2001. They also mentioned that the forced sale of assets belonging to military units was prohibited by the law.
15.  The judgment of 22 August 2001 remains partially unenforced.
16.  In 2002 the applicant lodged with the Leninskyy District Court of Kirovograd (“the Leninskyy Court”) a complaint against the bailiffs, alleging that the judgment of 22 August 2001 had not been enforced because of fault on their part. On 3 December 2002 the court found that the bailiffs had not taken the necessary measures to enforce the judgment in the applicant’s favour and ordered them to identify and freeze the bank accounts of the debtor military unit in order to seize the money available in those accounts.
17.  According to the applicant, the bailiffs did not comply with the court’s ruling of 3 December 2002. On 20 May 2003 he lodged a claim with the same court against the bailiffs, seeking compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage.
18.  On 29 July 2003 the applicant’s claim was partly allowed. The Leninskyy Court found that the judgment of 22 August 2001 remained unenforced through the fault of the bailiffs and awarded the applicant UAH 1,500.36[5] in compensation for pecuniary damage and UAH 1,000[6] for non-pecuniary damage. On 29 August 2003 the judgment of 29 July 2003 became final and enforceable. On 25 February 2004 an appeal by the applicant against the judgment of 29 July 2003 was dismissed as having been lodged out of time.
19.  On 3 March 2004 the applicant submitted a written request to the Leninskyy Court to issue a writ of execution in respect of the judgment of 29 July 2003. The applicant did not receive the writ or a reply to his request. The judgment of 29 July 2003 remains unenforced.
20.  Throughout the proceedings against the bailiffs, the applicant was assisted and represented by a lawyer.
21.  According to the applicant’s lawyer, in order to substantiate the application in the present case he had tried to obtain some unspecified documents from the applicant’s case file kept by the Leninskyy Court. On 13 July 2004 he requested that court to send him all the documents from the case file, without specifying that he needed them for the applicant’s case before the Strasbourg Court.
22.  In a letter of 29 July 2004 the Leninskyy Court informed the lawyer that he had failed to provide a form of authority and thus could not obtain the documents requested.
23.  The applicant’s lawyer did not resubmit his request with an authority form.